Ep. 407 • From Carpenter to Hall of Fame Hair Artist w/ Paul Mac
The Hair Game
Salon Republic
4.6 • 570 Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Award-winning stylist @paulmacspecial was a small town barber who secretly entered a hair competition - and won. He shares the amazing story of growing to be an internationally recognized hair artist, and the growing pains he had trying to leave small-minded individuals behind.
This Week's Topics:
• Paul's Journey into the Hair Industry
• The Turning Point: Winning Competitions
• Navigating Workplace Politics and Rivalries
• The Impact of Success on Personal Relationships
• Building a Brand and Future Aspirations
• Hair Trends and Styles in Ireland
• Balancing Work and Family Life
• The Creative Process Behind Headpieces
• Hair Horror Stories
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The boss kind of discourage me kind of going, oh, like, you're only a little Barbara and Kirk. |
| 0:05.9 | They'd only be kind of laughing at you up in Dublin. |
| 0:08.7 | So I entered my first competition, taught no one, didn't tell my parents, literally no one, my wife and the two models. |
| 0:17.6 | I winked. |
| 0:19.1 | I won. |
| 0:20.3 | I was the first Barbara to ever win it. |
| 0:24.5 | Hi, I'm Christina Cretel. I'm Maggie Mulhern from Modern Salon Media. |
| 0:28.3 | Hi, I'm Eric Vaughn. Hello, Todd to Head Fest, East in the Land. This is Guy Tang, and welcome to the Hair Game Podcast. |
| 0:41.1 | Hey, everybody, Donovan here, producer of the Hair Game podcast. |
| 0:45.4 | Salon Public has a new location in Encino, our second location there. |
| 0:47.4 | It is opening imminently. |
| 0:50.3 | It is probably open by the time you hear this. |
| 0:53.9 | So go to slanturnerpublic.com or our link in bio, book a tour. You can go check out |
| 0:55.8 | the new space and we have some studios available. Find your new hair home. All right, on to our |
| 1:01.3 | episode with Paul Mack. All right, Paul Mack special. You're an internationally renowned |
| 1:06.8 | Irish barber, educator, stylist, and self-taught avant-garde hairpiece designer. |
| 1:15.7 | It's a mouthful right there. You do a lot. You've won too many awards to name. I started writing them down. |
| 1:22.1 | And then I'm like, no, the listeners as they're driving to the salon in the morning, you know, they don't, I don't need to list all like 35, you know, the listeners as they're driving into salon in the morning, you know, they don't, |
| 1:31.4 | I don't need to list all like 35, you know, awards. |
| 1:35.1 | But you've won a lot of awards. |
| 1:40.5 | You've had more than 30 magazine covers and you're the founder of Hair Slayers, the International Education brand, which we just mentioned. |
| 1:44.0 | So I was in Ireland about two |
... |
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